June 19th: Alençon Lace

Alençon is a pleasant town with a long history associated with lace making. A typical street near the old town centre is shown above.
In contrast to most towns who go all out to capitalise on their past, there was no evidence visible of their former lace industry at all, nothing in the shops, no café/hotel/restaurant names associated with it etc. This was in complete contrast to Mère Poulard of Mont St Michel, a solitary figure from the past done to death by the trinket industry, and surely a missed opportunity for Alençon with a genuine heritage stretching back centuries.
But there was a local museum with a large lace section, and it was fascinating.

This example is about 4 inches across, and look at the incredible detail! Even the background mesh is created by the lacemaker and there are 9 stages in producing the finished product. It took an astounding approx 1,000 hours to make this 4-inch circle. We saw much bigger works of immense intricacy and skill, representing eras when all nobility, men and women, and high-ranking churchmen were generously adorned with lace. There were about a dozen other lace making centres in France, but Alençon was top rank. The industry started to shrink in the early 19th century and today survives in one small local sponsored workshop.
The museum also contained many works of art, a few with an unusual label alongside. See underneath, where the text of the notice is magnified.

What it says is:
PLACEMENT BY THE STATE
WORK RECOVERED
BY THE ALLIES IN 1945
A further panel elsewhere explains that when the French works of art pirated by the Nazis were reclaimed in 1945, there were some that could not be reunited with their original owners. The state then stepped in and allocated these works to an appropriate museum. So there's a lottery-style win waiting for some worthy relation who can prove his rights of inheritance, but presumably you're disqualified if you have a German name!